Ahead of Thursday's NYC education event, Ars Technica reports via a leak source that Apple plans to announce a simpler way for authors to create and publish e-books as well as the iBook app's adoption of the ePub3 standard. The WSJ also names publisher McGraw-Hill as a project partner. All these developments suggest Apple's gearing up to bring textbooks to the iPad but we'll have to wait until Thursday to see. [Electronista]